This round of Philly has been defined by Bryan sleeping while I couch out in the living room, alternatively surfing and reading The Stand, which I'm about a good 2/5 into. Rather than dick around with my ipod or whatever's on Athena, I've been listening to Secret Agent and Binary's Pow-Wow 2005 set, both of which are a huge departure from the usual sonic territory. Different town, different vibe. No need for the industrial-metal defenses here.

Went out to wawa earlier : neither of us felt like really being out, and there was one hell of a crowd in front of the target pizza place, as well as other general Halloween loudness. Turns out we're of similar minds on the whole "dealing with civilians" thing, so Bryan ordered pizza and we watched the director commentary on Aliens. There was much rejoicing.

Clocks are adjusted, alarms are set, and if SEPTA and the cabs aren't on strike tomorrow (one of which will be critical to the whole "travelling at least thirty blocks" thing) I'll be on the 1145am train out. There's a slight chance of rjbs if Bryan and I can manage the morning thing.

There'll be a couple more blog entries and another DCR between now and then, but I think it's reasonably safe to say that all of the excitement has cooled down. It's nice to have spent a couple of days chilling instead of making comics and drinking.

The only downside of the whole adventure is that I feel like I've secondhanded a case of Lucky Strikes. I'm used to two and a half to four hour shifts in smoky rooms followed by a break of at least sixteen hours, usually more - a four hour tour with a seven hour break followed by a six and a half hour run has left me hack-hack, wheeze-wheeze. That aside, Philly still gives off that clean, scrubbed-down-with-a-steel-brush vibe, in stark contrast to Pittsburgh's patina of I-showered-last-week-whaddayawant?! trailer park filth. Probably has something to do with the fact that the town isn't hemmed in by hills on all sides and the air actually has a chance to move around, or something.

Don't get me wrong, both cities have their clean bits and their nasty bits and I've seen plenty of both - but Pittsburgh is an unplanned dollop of asphalt in a river valley, and it looks like it. Philly is much less claustrophobic, and the openness and lack of a hilly horizon certainly feels fresh.